At Oktane 2026, many of our conversations came back to the same thing: even when the identity tools are in place, there’s still a lot of manual work involved in getting an access request from start to finish.
An employee asks for access in Slack. Someone in IT figures out what they need, tracks down the right approver, waits for a response and then makes the change. We heard different versions of that workflow throughout the week in Las Vegas.
The access change itself might be straightforward. Everything around it is where teams are still spending time.
What we heard at Oktane
A recurring question throughout the week was how much autonomy an agent should have when it comes to access. Teams wanted to understand where automation fits, when approvals should still be required and how the right controls stay in place.
We also heard a broader challenge: small IT teams are supporting more employees, more apps and more requests without much extra headcount. Engineering and system owners still get pulled in, and someone still has to keep requests moving when they involve multiple people or systems.
That’s where teams saw the opportunity for Ravenna to take on more of the coordination, giving IT more time to focus on the work that matters most.
The work behind access requests
Our co-founder Kevin Coleman spoke twice during the week. He joined Auth0’s Camp AI to talk about using AI agents for internal support in production, and later gave a Lightning Theater talk, “Access granted. Now what? Automating the other half of IT support,” focused more specifically on the work surrounding everyday access requests.
That includes things like new or broken access, password and MFA resets, role changes and offboarding. The action itself may be simple once the request reaches the right system, but there’s often work required before that happens: understanding what the employee needs, checking policy, getting the right approval and making sure the request actually gets completed.
During the presentation, Kevin showed how Ravenna can take an access request from Slack, check it against policy, route it to the right approver and trigger the change in Okta once it’s approved. The employee stays in Slack, while Ravenna handles the coordination behind the scenes and keeps a record of what happened along the way.
For IT teams, that means less time spent on manual follow-up and handoffs, and more time for higher-impact work.
The claw machine was a hit
The claw machine brought plenty of people over, and the Ravenna Jibbitz gave them a reason to keep trying. A fair number of people came back for another shot throughout the week.
It ended up being a fun way to meet people we might not have otherwise gotten a chance to talk to.
If you missed your shot at Oktane, keep an eye out for us at future events. The claw machine will likely be making another appearance.
Beyond the show floor
On the first night, we hosted a dinner at Nobu with IT leaders from the show. It gave us more time to continue the conversations we had started during the day and go deeper on where teams are still spending too much time on manual work and what they’re looking to automate next.
Thank you to Okta for bringing everyone together, and to everyone who joined us for dinner, came to one of Kevin’s sessions or spent time talking with the team throughout the week.
Missed us at Oktane?
If we didn’t get a chance to connect during the week, we’d be happy to show you how Ravenna helps IT teams automate repetitive support work, streamline approvals and keep requests moving without all the manual follow-up.
Bring a workflow your team handles today and we can talk through what it could look like with Ravenna.
